Either He’s an Angel or He’s Got a Huge Future in Texas Hold ‘Em

Recently, I had some one-on-one time with my son. His dad was out of town and Vivien was spending the night at her grandparents’ house. Dean and I don’t get time for just the two of us nearly enough these days. I blame myself. (Would somebody please get me a Football for Dummies book?)

Anyway, it was nice to have him all to myself. We had a little shopping spree at the stores of his choosing (Champs and Footlocker) then finished up online when we returned home. He’d been hoarding a lot of Christmas gift cards so he was able to purchase a decent number of things (all athletic gear) on his own with a little help from me.

When we were done, we started to toss around ideas about what we could do with the rest of our night. A quick perusal of the current movie listings pigeonholed all available choices into three categories:

Movies that would provide a most uncomfortable experience for a mother/son viewing combination.

So we opted to find something we could watch at home. With Amazon, Netflix and OnDemand available to us, we knew there just had to be something out there. So we both started looking things up on our various devices. Being an idiot, I decided to play a little joke on him.

HIM (looking up from his phone like a deer in the headlights … the headlights of a giant 18-wheeler carrying nothing but show tunes DVDs, Barbie dolls and pink nail polish): “Um … sure. Okay.”

Cut to me with my mouth hanging open. That boy was going to sit through his sister’s entire four-hour dance recital AGAIN without so much as a whimper. Because that’s what he thought *I* wanted to do. Just when I’d decided my kids were selfish and always thinking of themselves, he proved me way wrong.

We had a similar experience at my house with him recently. “Do you want to stay here and work in the hot, blistering afternoon sun while doing garden work or do you want to go to the pool with your friends?” “It doesn’t matter, Papa. I’ll do either one.” I need to take lessons from him on putting the needs/wants of others before my own. I would have been splashing in the pool!!